Electoral reform tops policy group’s agenda
BOISE – A citizens group influential in last year’s property tax debate will lobby for election reform this year as its top priority, its leader announced Tuesday.
The Common Interest, headed by a Harvard professor, will study proposals for voting by mail and changing the state’s primary system.
Although a House committee rejected an effort to close Idaho’s primaries Monday, Republican leaders aim to renew legislation to require Idaho voters to register with a party to participate in the state’s primary. Currently, voters can choose which party’s ballot to vote on Election Day.
About 250 members of The Common Interest’s members also chose K-12 education and health care affordability and accessibility as priorities this year. Although Statehouse restoration and legislation to restrict elk ranching and “canned hunts” have received considerable attention recently, they ranked lowest among the 25 issues considered by the group.
Keith Allred, group founder and president, said his organization may create longer-term committees to research education, health care, tax exemptions and tax credits. He noted that those may be difficult issues to influence in a single session.
Election reform made the group’s agenda because of legislation, including a bill backed by the state’s county clerks, to institute a vote-by-mail election system. Competing bills HB 94 and HB 95 would each give counties the option of using mail voting. A vote-by-mail system could increase voter turnout, Allred said.
The group’s focus was also spurred by the Idaho Republican Party’s decision this summer to support closed primary elections in its platform after concerns about Democratic meddling in the 1st Congressional District primary race.
Idaho’s recent trend of low primary election voter turnout causes higher partisanship and signals a threat to democracy, Allred said.
Just 26 percent of registered voters participated in the 2006 primary.
Another option to enhance primary participation might be “instant runoff voting” – a system in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. If one candidate does not receive 50 percent of the vote, the lowest vote-getter is bumped until one candidate wins.
Allred created the organization in 2005 to combat special-interest lobbying groups and to augment nonpartisan participation in state elections.
“One person referred to us as the anti-special interest special interest,” Allred said.
About a third of Idaho voters consider themselves independent, according to the latest Boise State University Public Policy Survey, released last month.
The group’s foremost issue for the year, election reform, is embroiled in a partisan battle. Four Republican lawmakers crossed party lines to join five Democrats on Monday to stop a measure designed to close Idaho’s open primary system, even though it was backed by House GOP leaders. Several of the Republicans said they simply hadn’t noticed the leaders’ names on the measure before voting on it.
Eagle resident Dale Dewey, 57, has been a member of The Common Interest for several months. He put election reform second on his personal list, below alleviating grocery taxes and before expanding community colleges.
“I’m a very strong believer that government should be by the people, and I’m very concerned that we seem to be very partisan,” he said.
The group has proved itself in recent years, but working on health care and K-12 education will be a “real proving and testing ground” of the organization’s long-term power, Dewey said.
The Common Interest might apply for nonprofit status so that it can receive money from foundations to pay experts to advise its long-term projects, Allred said. Foundations have already approached the organization, he said.